We generated 135 Gb of sequence (4 billion paired 35-base reads) over a period of 8 weeks (December 2007 to January 2008) on six GA1 instruments averaging 3.3 Gb per production run. The approximate consumables cost (based on full list price of reagents) was $250,000.

Thus the price does not include labor, and is not a true commercial cost (labor is only truly free for professors).

I am therefore not sure if/how this price can be compared to the prices in the figure below.

Update 2: I fixed the significant figure issue with the cost axis. Alas, Open Office does not give great control over the appearance of the digits.)